


pack up your eyes and run away

by eluna



Series: Alternate Universes & Canon Divergence [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Autistic Dean Winchester, Background Daniel Elkins, Codependent Winchesters (Supernatural), Disabled Dean Winchester, Emotionally Hurt Sam Winchester, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Mental Instability, Neuroatypical Dean Winchester, Non-Chronological, POV Sam Winchester, Pre-Season/Series 01, Sam Winchester Has Mental Health Issues, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-16
Updated: 2018-06-16
Packaged: 2019-05-24 04:37:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14947724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eluna/pseuds/eluna
Summary: The problem with Dean is that he makes more promises than he can simultaneously accommodate. It isn’t deliberate: he just can’t see the ways in which the one conflicts with the other until he’s enshrouded in the contested territory between Dad’s expect and Sam’s desire, begging Sam with words and tears and eyes for Sam to bend, as though he’s any more likely to do so than Dad is. There’s a face Dean makes—chin up, cheeks stained, crow’s feet crinkled in a pout—when he tells Sam what Dad’s done this time and then interrupts himself abruptly, staring Sam down like it’s up to Sam to reconcile the tension.Sam has never had any intention of reconciling the tension between himself and Dad and Dean. Sam is stubborn and proud and already too much of a humiliation to himself to degrade himself further at Dean’s request. The problem with Dean is that he can’t hold together the multiplicity of promises he makes, and when it comes time to choose—but he doesn’t even view choosing Dad as making a choice. Sam, with his evil eye and angry bite and bones crumbling to dust, is Dean’s expected partner in keeping the peace, but if peace looks like ignoring Sam’s own needs in favor of Dad’s demands, then he’ll take open fire any day.





	pack up your eyes and run away

**Author's Note:**

> Scenes are not listed in chronological order, so please don't get confused by that. Title from Ani DiFranco because that's about how my life is going lately (read: queer angst). Comments/kudos appreciated <3

_You know, with our usual playmates, there’s rules—there’s patterns. But with people, they’re just crazy._

_—Dean Winchester, “The Benders”_

* * *

 

The problem with Dean is that he makes more promises than he can simultaneously accommodate. It isn’t deliberate: he just can’t see the ways in which the one conflicts with the other until he’s enshrouded in the contested territory between Dad’s _expect_ and Sam’s _desire_ , begging Sam with words and tears and eyes for Sam to bend, as though he’s any more likely to do so than Dad is. There’s a face Dean makes—chin up, cheeks stained, crow’s feet crinkled in a pout—when he tells Sam what Dad’s done this time and then interrupts himself abruptly, staring Sam down like it’s up to Sam to reconcile the tension.

Sam has never had any intention of reconciling the tension between himself and Dad and Dean. Sam is stubborn and proud and already too much of a humiliation to himself to degrade himself further at Dean’s request. The problem with Dean is that he can’t hold together the multiplicity of promises he makes, and when it comes time to choose—but he doesn’t even view _choosing Dad_ as making a choice. Sam, with his evil eye and angry bite and bones crumbling to dust, is Dean’s expected partner in keeping the peace, but if _peace_ looks like ignoring Sam’s own needs in favor of Dad’s demands, then he’ll take open fire any day.

Daniel’s not around, which—is its own blessing, in a way, because it spares Sam witnessing another evening of the eternal battle between his father and his uncle. But tonight’s point of contention is still, as usual, completely fucking stupid: Dad’s pissed that Sam wants to skip a weekend hunt to study for the algebra test he’s got coming up on Tuesday, and he’s sicced Dean on Sam to convince him to go. Of course, Dad doesn’t know that the real reason Sam wants to stay home has nothing to do with algebra and everything to do with the shit-show happening inside of his head.

“Why are you being so stubborn about this?” Dean asks. He’s lying next to Sam on the floor of their bedroom, half of his face all smushed up and silly-looking from where it’s resting in the cradle of his own palm. His other hand is running the length of Sam’s exposed side, tucked up radiator-hot to the skin underneath Sam’s shirts, and this is exactly what Sam is talking about when he tries to explain to his brother that the way they act around each other when they’re alone—the wonderful way that they then have to punt aside the rest of the time—isn’t _fair_. “You love hunting. All you ever want to do in your downtime is go hunting.”

“No, Dean, I don’t _love_ hunting, it’s just—easier,” Sam sighs. “Dad’s had me looking up vamp lore with Daniel since I was nine. I went on my first salt-and-burn when I was in, like, sixth grade. It’s how Dad—I think it’s the only way he knows how to maintain a relationship with me, and so if I throw myself into it… but that doesn’t mean I want to do it for the sake of itself.”

Dean doesn’t answer, just pulls his hand out of Sam’s shirt to rub it along the side of Sam’s face instead. “Does that make sense?” Sam asks his brother for the millionth time in this life, because if they don’t say these things out loud, they’ll never get anywhere with each other.

“It does,” Dean confirms after a pause. “I mean, I’m following what you’re saying, but I can’t believe that Dad would only ever want to relate to you by hunting. Dad and I talk about all sorts of other stuff, even now that I know that he moonlights as a hunter.”

That’s the other thing. Even in Sam’s earliest memories, Dad made sure that Sam’s life was all about Dean—about fitting in his own play-dates and activities around Dean’s riptide schedule of doctors’ appointments, about spending all his free time with Dean to help teach him social skills and appropriate play, about shouldering half Dad’s burden of knowing about hunting in order to help hide it from Dean. The foundation of Dad and Dean’s relationship is the sharing of the kind of emotional intimacy that lets Dad know what he needs to do for his sick little boy—the foundation of Dad and Sam’s is hunting, and nothing else, now that Dad has ingrained the torch of accountability for Dean’s well-being deep enough in Sam that he knows no amount of distance could ever make him shed it.

It makes him want to let loose on Dean for being so _blind_ to the way Sam’s been divorced from any kind of closeness with anybody but his stupid, sick brother who tries so hard and falls so short; it makes him wish he didn’t _love_ Dean more, most days, than himself and his own selfish cruelty; and more than anything, it makes him want Dean to just _snap back_. He’s never once seen Dean raise his voice, lose his temper, _get mad_ any of the times that Sam’s been dying to unleash the monster of pain out of his chest and onto his stupidly composed brother—but every time he does, _he’s_ left looking like an abusive jackass while Dean just… cries, or else smiles and says _okay, Sammy_ , in that placating voice he uses when he doesn’t get what it is that he’s done to set Sam off, and so doesn’t recognize that there’s any harm to investigate beyond _angry_ _Sammy being angry Sammy again_.

The whole situation makes Sam _sick_ inside, and what makes him even sicker is how good it feels to have Dean’s hand on his cheek, to huddle in closer on the hardwood floor so that their chests press together and their ankles intertwine. “We’ve talked around this a million times, Dean; can’t we just—not? Can’t you just trust me for once?”

Dean’s eyebrows crease together; Sam watches him do it through unfocused eyes, close together as the two of them are pressed there on the floor. “I always trust you, Sammy,” says Dean with infuriating sincerity. “But me trusting you doesn’t have anything to do with you being wrong about Dad’s intentions.”

Sam scrunches his eyes shut and then wrenches them back open. He skids his hands across the tight stretch of Dean’s shirt over his chest and leans in to kiss all over Dean’s cheeks and forehead, then, daringly, once each on his eyes—everywhere, essentially, except the place he wants. When Dean nuzzles his face into Sam’s neck, Sam can feel the grin through his kisses and _knows_ there must be something awful that’s wrong with him for not sharing Dean’s contentment.

* * *

 

Sam is nine years old when he runs on heavy feet across the hall from his and Dean’s bedroom to Dad’s. Hesitating outside the door, he lifts a shaky hand and raps his white knuckles gently across the wood two, three, four times before the latch clicks and Dad’s sleep-worn face appears in the crack. “Sammy?” he asks, and his voice sounds tight and sad, even more so than usual.

“Dad,” says Sam, and then he stops, because he knows how ridiculous the words are going to sound to Dad, and anyway this is _Dean stuff_ —the kind of thing Sam wouldn’t normally dare tell anyone but his stupid, beautiful big brother, who doesn’t know any better than to ruffle Sam’s hair, promise as many times as Sam asks that there isn’t any monster in the closet, and clutch him at the waist until they both fall back asleep in Dean’s bed. But Dean won’t wake up this time, just mumbles soothing half-words and weakly pats Sam’s back even after Sam tries to shake him awake, and there’s nobody else but Dad to go to.

“Sammy, it’s late—it’s almost eleven o’clock at night. What is it? Is there something wrong? Has something happened with Dean? Is—”

“No.” Of _course_ Dad’s mind jumps straight to Dean; sometimes Sam wonders where there’s room in Dad’s head for anything but Dean, for anything like Sam himself. “No, it’s fine, everything’s fine, I’m just…” He bows his head and chews on his lower lip. “It’s stupid. There was a creaking noise coming from the closet, and I… got scared.”

“Look at me, Sammy,” says Dad in his croak-weary voice, and Sam looks up to find a sad smile chiseled onto his lips. “Scared of monsters?”

Sam nods.

Dad sighs, turning his head over his shoulder to face into his bedroom for a moment before whipping it back around, and he looks even more tired now, tired and sad and _dying_ —the word pops into Sam’s head unbidden and won’t leave, even though he knows how silly it sounds. There’s nothing _wrong_ with Dad’s body, but his mind…

Well. Sometimes Sam feels like _his_ own mind is slowly dying, too, so he guesses he and Dad might maybe have that in common.

“It’s probably nothing,” Dad is saying now, but he’s saying it too slowly, like he’s deliberating something—deliberating _what_ , Sam can’t imagine. “I’ll check with you, just to be sure, but it’s important that you learn to tell the difference between the real monsters and your own imaginings and paranoias.”

“The… real monsters?”

But Dad doesn’t hear him, having retreated into the bedroom for a terrifyingly long moment before emerging with—“Dad… why are you getting out your hunting gun?”

Dad smiles grimly. “Hunting ain’t just about animals, son. Come on. There’s a lot you don’t know.”

They traipse down the hallway of the little ranch house from Dad’s bedroom to his and Dean’s; Dad twists the handle all the way before pushing the door open so that it does so silently, without pressing against the latch, and Sam doesn’t know whether Dad’s being careful not to wake Dean or not to rouse attention from—but there _can’t_ be anything in the closet, Dean always says so, and Dean’s never wrong about these things, is he? But if Dean’s not wrong, then why is Dad inching stocking-footed toward the closet, raising a hand over his shoulder to gesticulate at Sam to stop, keep a safe distance?—why is he eking the closet door open with a ginger hand, the other one tight on his rifle, tugging the flashlight free from the top shelf of the closet and switching it on, sweeping it around all the corners…?

“All clear,” Dad whispers hoarsely, and Sam follows his lead when he replaces the flashlight and then begins backing slowly out of the room.

Dad pulls the door shut with a snap this time and rubs a hand all down his face. Sam stares up at him in amazement. “What do you _mean_ ,” he asks, emphatically this time, “the _real_ monsters?”

So Dad tells him.

Dad tells him, and Sam’s eyes feel hot and his throat feels wrenched shut and all he can think of is _Mom_ —Dad _never_ talks about Mom and Sam’s starting to maybe understand why—but before he can even think what he wants to ask, Dad’s saying, “Dean can’t know about this, son,” and something sick and wet and angry clenches inside of Sam. “He’s too…”

“Just ‘cause he’s weird doesn’t mean Dean is _weak_ ,” spits Sam, and he’s not sure whether he’s offended on Dean’s behalf or just angry that Dad would not just _put_ this terrible secret on Sam but expect him to go out of his way to hide it from the person he tells everything to. “He can handle knowing stuff like this. He probably wouldn’t even _blink_ if you told him.”

Dad shakes his head with that stupid half-smile that means he’s not going to change his mind, and Sam doesn’t know what’s worse: knowing he can’t tell Dean even though Dean would be _fine_ , or how stupid it always makes _Sam_ feel that he reacts to everything so much more strongly than Dean does.

Dad says next, “It’s not that I think Dean can’t handle the truth. You know how he—fixates on his—his special interest topics. I don’t want Dean to fixate on _this_ instead of paying attention to the skills he’s supposed to be learning in therapy.”

Sam’s brain makes several consecutive logical leaps, then, and ultimately settle on a sudden, flaming _hatred_ of his father. So it’s fine to dump the burden of _knowing about monsters_ on _Sam_ —to take away the one person who could possibly help him work through it—all because _Dean_ is the one Dad thinks deserves the mental space to work through his problems? They’ve thrown around words—autism, Asperger’s, nonverbal learning disability—but the doctors don’t even know what’s wrong with Dean, really. And Dad would rather _let Dean pay attention_ to their bullshit skills than let Sam have the one person in the world—the only thing—

“But you can always talk to me about it, Sammy—you know, if there’s anything you want to know about how hunting is done.” Sam looks up. “I could teach you, if you wanted to learn how. Does that… how does that sound?”

Dad’s face is the broken-open picture of earnest vulnerability, and Sam is—is glad, on some vindictive level. “Yeah, I guess. Maybe,” he says, and he knows he’s got to hold tight to this control with everything he’s got.

* * *

 

Sam barely has any memory of Kansas—Dad moved them to Manning in Colorado to be closer to Daniel when Sam was three—but it’s still _weird_ to be back there, even for something as routine as a weekend hunt. Dad’s pretty sure it’s an open-and-shut vengeful spirit case, but he still puts Dean to work at the local library before heading out with Sam to interrogate the family of the victim.

When they reconvene that evening, both investigations report that Abilene Willis was probably killed by the ghost of her deceased twin sister. The salt-and-burn is quick, Dean fighting off the Willis twin’s manifestation under Dad’s supervision while Sam drops his lighter over the salted corpse, and back at the motel, Dad buys two rooms: one for him and Sam, a separate one for Dean.

Right. It would have been nice for Dad to communicate before the trip that they’re allowed to be back to hunting together, but apparently not rooming together. But that’s the thing about the godforsaken Winchester family: for all the _verbalizing_ everybody does, nobody ever really says anything when it matters.

Sam sneaks out of his room after Dad’s fallen asleep—no easy feat—but when he taps on Dean’s door, he gets exactly what he should have expected, which of course is exactly what he doesn’t want. “Dad said no,” says Dean, shoving away Sam’s arms when he tries to wrap them around his brother. “He said letting you do anything sexual with me would be hurting you, and I made him a promise that I would never let anybody hurt you. I’m not going to _be_ the one to hurt you, Sammy.”

“You’re hurting me by not letting me be with you romantically,” says Sam, blunt and cutting, and it has the desired effect: Dean’s face starts to crumple and he whines, “Then what am I supposed to do to take care of you?”

“You’re supposed to _believe_ me when I say that Dad is wrong. It wouldn’t hurt me. I need it, Dean. Don’t you need me?”

But Dean steels his face and takes a few sharp, decisive steps backward away from Sam. “You’re doing what Dad said you’d do—you’re trying to manipulate me because you don’t know any better. I know my brain doesn’t work right when it comes to people, but I’m not  _stupid_ , Sammy: I can tell when you’re trying to hurt me to get something you want. Well, I won’t let you.”

Sam probably deserves the door to the face that he gets next, but knowing that doesn’t soften the sting.

* * *

 

There is one time that Dean lets them act on it, not long after Dean, like a dumbass, _asks Dad’s permission_ and gets shot down. Now, around this time, everything inside Sam’s mind is fractured and bleak; there’s hate in Dad’s eyes when Dad looks at him, and Sam can’t say he doesn’t deserve it for the sick bastard he’s been, taking the intensity of the love Dean’s always given him and twisting it into something wrong, something sick—but Sam can punish himself later for that. After a couple days of horrific awkwardness at home, Dad’s sent Dean off to live with Uncle Daniel, which—

Sam doesn’t know if he’ll ever understand Dad’s reasoning for sending Dean away instead of Sam. Dean’s the one that Dad dotes on: why should Dad want to put distance between himself and his golden child just so that he and Sam can skulk around resenting each other from opposite corners of the room? But none of that matters when Dad’s still at work and Dean comes inside after he walks Sam home from school. It’s like there’s a void inside Sam that only Dean can fill, but nothing is ever quite enough to make the wanting go away; there’s a cavern that’s draining out faster than Sam can fill it, and the only stopgap solution he can think of is to find _more Dean_ , something that’s getting harder and harder to do the longer they live apart.

Dad hasn’t yet moved Dean’s bed out of the bedroom they used to share, but they ignore it, Sam curled up in the fetal position on his own bed with Dean’s body wrapped around his back. Not for the first time, he’s glad to be stuck with a tiny twin-sized bed, because it means that they have to squeeze that much closer around each other in order to both fit in it.

“It’s okay, Sammy,” Dean is trying to tell him, but Sam’s not having any of that shit—not today, when his nerves are frayed down like naked wires and the _not enough_ of their relationship has abruptly been whittled down to  _nothing_.

“Stop lying,” Sam says flatly, even though he knows Dean (somehow, disgustingly) means what he’s saying.

Dean’s sharp intake of breath follows Sam’s words, and then Dean squeezes tighter around Sam’s belly with one arm, scrubs fingers through Sam’s hair with the other hand. “We’ll figure it out. We might have to see less of each other, and we might not be able to have sex like we wanted to, but you’re still my little brother, and I’m still gonna be here to take care of you.”

Sam scoffs at that, because really, who’s been taking care of whom for the duration of this fucked-up relationship? “It’s not just about sex, moron. I _love_ you. I want us to be here, together, for the rest of our lives. I—”

“So do I. And we still can be! We don’t have to be in a physical relationship to be there for each other.”

“You don’t get it. You so completely don’t get it that I don’t even know how to…” He draws a shaky breath and lets it out in a _whoosh_. “You look at physicality like it’s some kind of—of ‘add-on,’ like there’s no meaning missing if you take it away, but I… It’s not just sex; it’s— _love_ , _romantic_ love. You and Dad just took the thing I care most about in this life away from me, and it’s like you don’t even care, like you can’t even see how…”

Dean doesn’t respond for a long time, just rubs Sam’s arm and scratches his scalp and stays curled up behind him with his strong limbs and warm, sweet scent. “I’m sorry this is so hard for you,” he says finally.

“But you’re not sorry for hurting me by going along with what Dad wants.”

Dean pauses. “I’m hurting you?” Sam doesn’t reply, and he can feel an avalanche of babbling coming on when Dean continues, “Dad says I would be hurting you by touching you that way. I never wanted to hurt you. I’m doing all of this because I’m trying _not_ to hurt you. I—”

He stops talking, then, because Sam twists around in his arms to face his brother and kiss him on the mouth. For a few seconds, Dean doesn’t react—Sam lies there literally hanging off of his brother’s lips, frozen, waiting—and then Dean kisses back, and it’s too fast, they can’t seem to sync up to each other’s paces, but it’s _good_ and right and so much of what Sam ever wanted, but still not enough, no amount of Dean will ever be enough, and Dean—

—is rolling them down so Sam’s pressed into the mattress, Dean’s legs cocooning around him, hands fisted in Sam’s hair, and Sam _needs_ it, but it’s suddenly—over, Dean turning his head to the side and swinging his body up, off, and around Sam’s to settle back on the other side of the mattress.

Discreetly, Sam licks his lips. They taste good, like Dean, and it’s all he can do to remind himself that that was really real.

“That’s how much I love you,” says Dean. “Remember that if you ever think I’m pushing you away.”

“Not good enough.”

Dean’s whole face droops into a frown. “But _why_ isn’t it enough to know that I love you back? Why can’t we just know it without acting on it? It seems to me like wanting to act on it is what causes us all the problems.”

“Yeah, well, I can’t help what I want,” says Sam crossly, sitting up and folding his arms. He knows Dean didn’t intend it this way—Dean never intends things the way they come across—but Sam is stung by the implication that the problem with acting on his love for Dean somehow lies with him and Dean and not with Dad. “I love you more than I love anyone else in the world, including Dad, and it hurts that that doesn’t go both ways.”

“You can’t ask me to choose between you and Dad,” Dean says slowly. “He’s _Dad_. That’s not fair.”

But it’s never been a fair fight between Sam and Dean, really, not when Dean’s the only one with willpower and Sam’s the only one with a working understanding of human psychology. All he ever wanted was for his brother to understand him, and the worst part is when Dean gets kind of close before he drifts away into his mind again and it all falls back down.

* * *

 

These days, Sam has passed through taking everything Dean will give him and onto moodily rejecting every attempt Dean or Dad makes at reconciliation. It makes him feel a little better, or at least a little vindicated, until one fight with Dad that starts like all the others but ends—

“The thing I don’t understand is why you sent _Dean_ away to live with Daniel instead of keeping Dean and kicking _me_ out. You _dote_ on him, and you _hate_ me, so why—”

“I don’t _hate_ you, Sam, don’t get mouthy with me,” says Dad in his usual weary tone. It’s half of what usually incites Sam to rekindle their arguments: he can’t stand to let slide Dad’s patronizing tone, like Sam’s just a petulant toddler and Dad knows better than to properly engage Sam’s concerns.

“You _do_ hate me! At first you just didn’t notice me, and then I became the pervert who corrupted and took advantage of your favorite son, and now you can’t even look at me—look at you! You’re doing it now! Stop staring at your hands and _face_ me!”

To Sam’s surprise, Dad does, shifting his body and tilting up his chin to watch Sam with fatigue-wrinkled eyes. “I don’t think you’re a pervert, Sam. I think you’re confused and you need help.”

“ _Help_? I don’t see you putting me in therapy, or talking to my school counselor, or _asking_ me how I’m doing—any of the things you do for _Dean_ , and yet…”

“How are you doing?” asks Dad calmly.

Sam just stares at him for a moment, and then he sinks down deeper into the kitchen chair he’s slouched in and hides his face behind his hands. “I’m not okay,” he whispers. “I feel like I’m falling apart all the time, and Dean is the only person I trust enough to talk to about it, but since _you_ took him away from me _he_ barely looks at me anymore, either. So it’s just me, here, with it, and I’m doing my best, and it’s not _good_ enough, and I’m all alone.” He says it again, trying on for size what it feels like to tell any of this to someone other than Dean, someone who maybe will not just listen but understand: “I’m all alone.”

Maybe something Sam said got to Dad—he’ll probably never know—but after a long pause, Dad response in his gravelly monologue voice, making Sam sit up a little straighter and lower his fingers away from his eyes. “You’re wrong when you say that I didn’t used to notice you: I’ve always seen you, worried about you. Dean’s problems were of the sort that were easier to talk about in public, and I’ll admit I’ve sometimes thrown myself into them because his felt more… immediate, and yet also more solvable. I may not know how to _cure_ Dean, but I know what systems to navigate to at least _treat_ him and keep him taken care of. You, Sammy… I’ve spent half my life trying to save you, and I still don’t know how.”

Something cold washes over the back of Sam’s neck. “What do you mean, ‘trying to save me?’”

“I mean,” Dad says heavily, “that the thing that killed your mother—I don’t think it was after her at all. I’ve been studying it, tracking it as best as I can, and I think—it wanted _you_ for something, and Mom just got in its way. Trouble is, I don’t know what its plans were—or are—and no idea whether it accomplished its goal that night, whatever that may be, or if its plan for the children it hunted is yet to unfold.”

It’s probably a testament to something or other about Sam’s mental health that this information doesn’t really rattle him. “So you kept me here instead of sending me to Daniel’s—what, to keep an eye on me? Wait for me to—sprout tentacles or something because of something this monster did to me when I was a baby?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what it wanted with you or what I’m supposed to be looking for, whether its effect will manifest as physical or more… behavioral. Moral.”

It takes Sam a second to get it, but when he does, his whole body lights up with fury. “You think my feelings for Dean are some kind of abomination caused by the thing that killed Mom.”

“I _never_ said that.”

“You may as well have! I can’t _believe_ you— _that’s_ how little you think of me? Did you ever stop to think that _maybe_ the reason I started projecting romantic feelings onto my brother was because _you_ made _my_ whole life be about him?—that I didn’t have any room to fall in love with anyone else?”

“Sammy—”

“It’s _Sam_ ,” he spits. He doesn’t remember standing up, but he finds his feet pounding toward the hallway and into his bed; he flings himself facedown into the mattress, screams into it, squeezing fists shut until his nails dig painfully into his palms.

That’s the night Sam first logs onto a library computer and researches college applications and standardized test requirements—looks up, despite himself, which U.S. states have legalized sibling incest, and what universities he can apply to within them.

* * *

 

What you’ve got to understand about Dean is that he always _means_ well. Sam’s staring him down from the opposite side of the kitchen doorway—despair weighing down the creases in his forehead, trembling hands clinging to the strap of a duffel and the peeling doorframe—and even as he allows his tongue to lick out at where his lips still taste like his brother’s skin, Dean’s just staring back at him with the stupid smile that means he can’t figure out why his Sammy is mad at him again.

“I don’t understand,” Dean, sure enough, starts saying—because he always means well but never really _knows_ Sam the way Sam needs to be known, the way _he_ knows _Dean_ but never the other way around—“why it _has_ to be a choice. There are so many schools in the Denver area you could have commuted to from Manning—you could find a job here for the next year and apply to some of them! Or—or if it’s about wanting to leave the state, Dad and I could—”

“No,” says Sam, his lips thin and patience thinner, “you couldn’t. I can’t keep…” He purses his lips tighter, licks again at the insides of them where Dean can’t see, and works his throat until he thinks he can keep the wavering of his voice under lock. “I can’t keep doing this—thing that you and Dad and I do. It h—it hurts too much. Okay?” His voice, mortifyingly, cracks. “If this is what it means to belong to this family, then I don’t want it—I don’t want to be a part of it.”

Dean stares back at where Sam’s incessantly starting to cry, Dean’s mouth hanging open and eyes crinkled like _lost_ , like _lonely_ , like _brother_. “That’s not—I need you to be more specific. You don’t want _what_?”

There’s no joy in the motion when Sam draws up his cheeks and flattens his mouth into a pantomime of a smile. He doesn’t explain. The last thing he needs is to waste any more time on _getting Dean to understand_ when he should have accepted years ago that he and Dean will never want the same things from each other.

“I’m not asking you to come with me,” he says, because he has to, “but if you _wanted_ to—to come—now would be the time to say so.”

Sam watches Dean’s eyebrows furrow as his mouth drops to a gape, watches Dean’s sparkling eyes dart back and forth between Sam’s own like looking for the escape route Sam vandalized the second he said, _I got accepted into Rutgers University, and I’m going_. If Dean understood anything that mattered in his relationship with his brother, he’d realize that Sam didn’t apply exclusively to schools in Rhode Island and New Jersey for no reason—but, as established long ago, there’s very little there that Dean actually understands: for example, the fact that the out Sam just gave him was a compromise between saving face and begging Dean not to tear their relationship apart.

Dean screws up his face like he’s going to cry when he says, “I made Dad and Uncle Daniel a promise, Sammy, so if you say you have to go, I guess I have to accept that and let you go.”

The words sound so respectful on the surface—and Sam supposes they are, in Dean’s conception of the world—but there’s a lot about people that Dean doesn’t understand: it’s what makes him inept at questioning witnesses but excellent at hunting the monsters themselves, stalking them by their own rules, because those rules are things that Dean can fit into his algorithms. There’s probably an algorithm out there somewhere that describes _Sam in the context of Dean_ —something as viscous and ugly as Sam’s instinct to cling to Dean as much as Dean will let him, then spit vitriol into the crevasse Dean won’t let him cross—but two therapists and half a dozen specialists later, Dean still hasn’t mastered the algorithms describing people, not even those of the three people he knows best in the world.

The exclusivity of being one of those three is one of Sam’s selfishly favorite things about being Dean’s brother. The loneliness of, eighteen years later, _still_ feeling fundamentally misunderstood by the person _Sam_ loves most is one of his least.


End file.
